Loaded: Smells fishy

2 March 2009

Transcript

>> Amazon gives in to the Authors Guild over text-to-speech. Skype gives you a few new options for overseas calling and a few bizarre ways to get rid of a Nokia. It's Monday, March 2, I'm Natali Del Conte and it's time to get Loaded.
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>> Amazon gave in on the Kindle's new text-to-speech ability. Publishers will now be able to decide whether the Kindle 2 will be allowed to read their books aloud in a computerized voice. Initially this capability was available to all books, but the Authors Guild objected, calling it a derivative performance and thus, in violation of copyright law. Amazon maintains that the feature is still legal, but nonetheless relented to a peace publishers and writers. This is so silly. I think I might just boycott the works of any author that denies Amazon the text-to-speech function out of principle. The Kindle may get some competition from Hearst publisher soon. Rumors are a flip that the publisher may develop its own electronic reader with an emphasis on magazines and newspapers which is of course their core business. This wouldn't be too terribly surprising given the fact that Hearst is an investor in E Ink which is the company that provides the core technology behind the Kindle and the Sony Reader. But we don't know much more about the content, delivery plan or hardware. What we do know is that it's inevitable that Amazon and Sony will get more competition in this market. Speaking of the Sony Reader you can now get a special James Bond edition. The Reader itself is not different, but it comes with two free Ian Fleming books, Casino Royale and For Your Eyes Only. It comes with a 007 embossed cover. It cost $299 which is the same price as the non-007 version. Kind of a cool gift for Bond fans although would James Bond use an E Reader, seems like an odd gadget for a man of action. What do you think write in at loaded@cnet.com. For die hard Mac addicts someone argued that there's no better browser than Camino. Well, now they can rejoice with the version 2 beta. It features the latest version of Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine. In addition it ties in to Mac OS X's core technologies like key chain for storing passwords and cocoa for TUI. It also supports drag and drop tabs and better bookmark handling. It's available now at caminobrowser.org. Skype launched a service called Skype To Go late last week. It will come in handy when you're traveling and don't want to pay hefty international calling rates. Instead, you just dial a Skype To Go number from any phone and you'll be routed to make calls from a central VoIP-calling service. From there you can call any number you'd like. Skype To Go numbers are local, so they're included in your phones plan. You'll be charged regular Skype rates. This is certainly much cheaper than paying international rates on your mobile plan. If you want to do the math for yourself go to skype.com/allfeatures/togo. This next story is slightly self promotional. There's a new TV.com iPhone application and if you have an iPhone I think you should check it out because you can watch Loaded there. TV.com is of course a CBS property, so you can get CBS shows and newscasts, plus content from the CW, Showtime, CHOW, GameSpot and of course CNET. In fact a viewer named Robert [assumed spelling] twittered me over the weekend to inform me that you can find Loaded listed between Letterman and MacGyver, which maybe the coolest thing I've heard in 2009. Android users, I'm hoping we'll get you an application soon, so sit tight. People seem to be getting rid of their Nokia phones in really unorthodox ways these days. A woman in Wisconsin found one in a bag of rippled potato chips. The phone didn't work possibly because it had been living in a bag of salt and grease. In the same week a pair of fishermen in the UK found a working Nokia phone inside the belly of a fish that they caught. It belonged to a businessman who lost it on the beach where it was swallowed by the fish. When the phone was found in the belly of the fish which I find biblically ironic it still worked. I would hope the original owner doesn't opt to keep using it though. That phone will never smell good again. Those are your headlines for today, but I will see you right here tomorrow thank you for watching. I'm Natali Del Conte with CNET TV and you've just been Loaded.
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